A purple bud will catch your eye. But after more than 30 years around hydroponics and growing, I want to know more than what a flower looks like. What is in it? How was it grown and handled? And what does the evidence actually tell us about it?
At Paradise Compassion Club, we talk a lot about growing, drying, curing and storage. There is another part of the plant worth getting to know: flavonoids. They help explain some of the colours we see, and certain cannabis flavonoids are attracting scientific interest. The interesting part is learning what they do without turning every laboratory result into a medical promise.
What are flavonoids?
Flavonoids are a large family of plant compounds. Anthocyanins—the pigments associated with many red and purple colours—belong to that family. Cannabis also produces other flavonoids, including compounds called cannflavins. The purple pigment and the cannflavins researchers study for inflammation are different things. [1, 2]
That distinction matters. Seeing purple flower tells you something about pigment expression. It does not give you a measurement of its cannflavin content or tell you how much relief a particular patient will experience. A photograph cannot stand in for a chemical analysis.
Why does some cannabis turn purple?
Genetics plays a role in the plant’s ability to produce and accumulate these pigments. Researchers examining differently coloured cannabis varieties have identified diversity in anthocyanins and the genes associated with their production. Colour is part of real plant biology, rather than simply a name printed on a strain label. [1]
Environment matters too. A 2025 experiment used a purple, day-neutral cannabis population to investigate temperature, flower weight, CBD and anthocyanin accumulation. Pigment production responded differently from CBD concentration and flower weight. The conditions giving the strongest colour were not simply the same conditions giving the best results for every other trait. [3]
For me, that is a useful reminder to growers: a more dramatic colour is not a complete scorecard for the crop. Those results came from a particular population under controlled conditions. They are not a universal temperature recipe for every strain, and they do not show that colder flower is better medicine.
Cannflavins: a reason to keep researching
The medical interest goes beyond appearance. In 1985, researchers isolated a cannabis compound they called cannflavin and studied its effect on production of prostaglandin E2 in cultured rheumatoid synovial cells. Prostaglandin E2 is involved in inflammatory processes. This was laboratory research using cells, not a trial showing that patients got better after using purple cannabis. [4]
A later study published in 2019 investigated how cannabis makes cannflavins A and B. The researchers identified enzymes involved in that biosynthetic pathway. Understanding how a plant produces a compound is an important research step, because it can help scientists investigate that compound more systematically. It is still a different question from whether a finished cannabis product delivers a useful, safe dose to a person. [2]
What about the claim that they are stronger than aspirin?
You may see a striking comparison saying cannflavins have anti-inflammatory activity around 30 times that of aspirin. That comparison refers to experimental activity reported in the research literature. It is not evidence that smoking a bud works 30 times better than taking aspirin, nor does it establish an equivalent human dose. [2, 4]
The concentration in the plant, the amount reaching the body, the way it is used and the outcome being measured all matter. None of the studies discussed here establishes purple flower as an aspirin replacement. I think the research is worth following precisely because there are still questions to answer.
Can colour predict the effect?
I would not choose a patient’s cannabis by colour alone. Anthocyanins, cannflavins and cannabinoids are not interchangeable measurements. Nor can a strain name tell us exactly what every batch contains. The studies above do not provide a validated purple-colour scale for predicting pain relief, relaxation or any other patient outcome.
The broader idea that cannabis compounds may interact is often called the entourage effect. It is a reason to study mixtures carefully, not a guarantee that every compound improves every other compound. These papers do not establish how flavonoids in ordinary flower change a person’s experience.
What this means at Paradise
My interest is in understanding the whole process, from the growing plant to the finished flower. That means paying attention to the crop, looking at the available information and being honest about what we do not know. Good-looking flower deserves the same careful questions as any other flower.
For members, the practical message is straightforward: enjoy the colour, but ask about the batch and the information behind it. If a headline makes a medical claim, ask whether the research involved cells, animals or patients. Those are different stages of evidence.
Cannabis still has plenty to teach us. Flavonoids are an interesting part of that story, and I would rather explain the science clearly than promise something the research has not demonstrated. That is how we keep learning together.
Paradise Compassion Club
Quality • Care • Community
Educational information for adults 19+. This article does not recommend changing prescribed treatment; discuss treatment decisions with your healthcare professional.
Research and further reading
[1] Gagalova and colleagues (2024), Leaf pigmentation in Cannabis sativa.
[2] Rea and colleagues (2019), Biosynthesis of cannflavins A and B.
[3] Kim and colleagues (2025), Temperature, anthocyanins, flower weight and CBD.
[4] Barrett and colleagues (1985), Isolation of cannflavin and prostaglandin research.
Inspired by the topic explored in Cannabis Now’s flavonoids article. This is an independently written Paradise Compassion Club explanation, checked against the research linked above.